The present invention relates to a convertible household electric cooking appliance intended for indoor use and more particularly to a household electric cooking appliance which may be used as a clamshell or contact grill having heated upper and lower cooking plates that cooperate to form a cooking chamber between them for rapidly cooking the foods or may be used as a double, grooved griddle having two upwardly-facing electrically-heated plates.
Indoor electric contact grills have grown substantially in popularity among the consuming public and many models are commercially available through retail outlets. There is a continuing need to provide electric household grills which are attractive, safe, and convenient to use. Household contact grills have a lower housing with feet or pads for supporting the grill on a counter top and an upper housing pivotally mounted for rotation about a horizontal pivot axis on the upper housing. The lower and upper housing support respective upper and lower grill plates. The lower cooking plate usually has surfaces that slope downwardly away from a proximal location near the pivot axis to a distal location which is considered to be at the front of the grill. Accordingly, liquids, fats and small food particles that are byproducts (herein after called xe2x80x9cliquid cooking byproductsxe2x80x9d) of the cooking process slide or flow down the sloping surfaces of the lower cooking plate to a collection vessel at the front of the grill, which may constitute a recess formed in the lower grill plate or may be separate from the lower grill plate. A common practice for household contact grills is to provide a liquid byproduct outlet at the front of the grill and a collection tray is placed by the user underneath the liquid outlet. Such an arrangement is not altogether desirable because of the greater depth of counter space required for the grill and the collection tray and because the tray is positioned such that the user can easily accidentally bump against the tray.
Typical household electric contact grills have calrod heaters for the grill plates that are preset to a single operating temperature and a timer that times the operation of the grill. The timers are usually spring-operated timers that are adjusted by the user to sound a signal after an adjusted period of time has elapsed. For the convenience of the user, the timer is preferably located at the front of the grill.
Most household electric contact grills are suited only for use as a contact grill. The prior art also includes so-called grooved griddles or hot plates that have only an upwardly-facing grill plate. In this day and age, the number of electric kitchen appliances available for use has placed kitchen counter and storage spaces at a premium. An appliance that could serve two different functions, namely a contact grill and a grooved griddle, could provide substantial advantages in cost and storage space relative to appliances that can perform only one function.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved household cooking appliance. More specifically, an object of this invention is to provide an improved household electric grooved griddle. Yet another object of this invention is to provide an improved household electric contact grill. A related object is to provide a convertible household electric cooking appliance which can be used as a grooved griddle or as a contact grill.
In accordance with the foregoing objects, the present invention provides a convertible household electric cooking appliance comprising a lower cooking unit and an upper cooking unit pivotally mounted on the lower cooking unit for rotation substantially about a horizontal axis into three different positions, a first position in which the upper cooking unit is on top of the lower cooking unit, a second position in which the upper cooking unit is substantially horizontally oriented with and parallel to the lower cooking unit, and a third, generally upright, position intermediate the first and second positions. Both the upper and the lower cooking units have heated cooking plates which are substantially mutually coextensive and form a cooking chamber between them when the upper cooking unit is on top of the lower cooking unit. When the cooking appliance is so organized, it forms a contact grill. When the upper cooking unit is pivoted to a position beside the lower cooking unit, the cooking appliance is organized to provide a pair of grooved griddles or a xe2x80x9cdouble griddle.xe2x80x9d When used as a double griddle, the cooking appliance of this invention naturally provides a larger cooking surface area than when used as a contact grill.
Preferably, the upper cooking unit, when used as part of a double griddle, has a support leg which supports the upper cooking unit so that its cooking plate is substantially coplanar with the lower cooking plate. The support leg is preferably pivotally mounted on the cover of the upper cooking unit and can be pivoted to an out of the way position, nearly flush with the upper cooking unit cover, when not in use.
When the cooking appliance of this invention is used as a contact grill, liquid cooking byproducts are guided away from the food being cooked by sloping surfaces on the lower cooking plate onto liquid outlet surface portions of the lower plate which direct the liquid cooking byproducts into a collection tray located below the liquid outlet surface portions.
The lower cooking plate of this invention is preferably mounted in a horizontal orientation and has a horizontal upper surface and sloping surfaces formed by elongate grooves of increasing depth from one end thereof the other. Because of this construction, the horizontal upper surface of the lower grill plate is divided into a plurality of elongate ribs having horizontal, mutually coplanar upper surfaces that support the food being cooked. Because the food rests on the horizontal upper surfaces of the ribs, food being cooked on the lower cooking plate has no tendency to slide along the downwardly-sloping surfaces.
Further in accordance with this invention, the grooves in the cooking plates are preferably generally parallel to a horizontal axis about which the upper cooking unit pivots relative to the lower cooking unit. The parts are organized so that the collection tray is located on one side of the lower cooking unit and a timer and a xe2x80x9cpower onxe2x80x9d light can conveniently be mounted on the front of the lower cooking unit without interfering with the use of the tray.
Preferably, the upper cooking plate is, when in use, horizontally supported and has plural, elongate, food-supporting ribs with mutually coplanar food-engaging surfaces separated by arcuate troughs that increase in depth from one side of the cooking plate to the other. The ribs and troughs are also parallel to an axis of rotation of the upper cooking unit relative to the lower cooking unit. When used as a griddle member, liquid cooking byproducts are guided by the grooves away from the food being cooked and accumulate at the deeper ends of the grooves.
In another aspect of this invention, an object is to provide an improved cooking unit for a household electric cooking appliance. In accordance with this aspect of the invention, a cooking unit, which itself may form a household griddle appliance or which may be connected to another cooking unit to form a contact grill, has a cooking plate with sloping surfaces for directing liquid cooking byproducts away from the cooking area to liquid outlet surface portions on the cooking plate and over the outlet surface portions into a collection tray removably mounted on the cooking unit.
Other arrangements are possible, but the collection tray is preferably mounted in a cavity located in the same support as the cooking plate. The cavity is defined in part by a pair of vertical wall portions spaced apart from one another in a parallel manner and extending in the same direction as the grooves. A pair of coplanar, upwardly-facing tray-supporting surfaces project toward one another from respective ones of the vertical wall portions. The collection tray has two lateral side flanges removably and slidably retained on the tray-supporting surfaces.
The foregoing and other objects and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following description and accompanying drawings.